What distinguishes belief from knowledge regarding history?

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I came across an agnostic phrase by Rory Jones in the Wall Street Journal:
the site where St. John the Baptist is said to have baptized Jesus more than 2,000 years ago
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Jones includes the phrase “is said to have” to include his understanding that we don’t know for sure that it actually happened there. When wondering if Jones wasn’t sure it happened at all, I thought to myself, “Wait, the Church says we know it happened!”

So this presents the question: How do we know whether something happened historically? How do we move from saying, “people say this happened,” to, “this happened”? What is the criteria?

My impression is that it comes down to individual preference, individual biases, how much information someone needs to feel comfortable. Put another way, we say we know it happened if denying it causes much confusion. This doesn’t seem to be a well-developed epistemology, though, so I’m not happy with this answer. I realize that I’ve never actually been taught how we rationally determine historical facts, except perhaps agnosticism – that it’s all probability, that we can’t have the certainty that experience yields.

That is:
Faith: We know some historical detail because the Church says so dogmatically.
Reason: We can’t know and can only speak qualitatively based on how much evidence there is and how comfortable we are with it (our philosophical biases, etc).

Is this correct? What are your thoughts?

I don’t intend to argue in this thread. I’m merely seeking a better epistemology for history.
 
Salutations,
We were brainwashed as children, with Catholic parents and the church. Now, most stuff is okay… There is simple and then, complex theology. Simple is for the children, the hard stuff is for us and how deep a seeker, you wish to become. Rome wrote about the rebel, Jesus.Josephus was a rebel against Rome and had a group of men who would attack Romans. Their group got caught and they knew they would be crucified. So, Josephus talks them all into suicide. They draw straws to see who would help them die and be last man standing. Josephus drew the long straw. BUT, HE DIDN’T KILL HIMSELF. He surrendered and talked Herod, I think, to let him be a writer of history of the Roman occupation and Hebrew culture. One can read his writings, thay aren’t considered accurate completely. His description of the Temple is accurate. But, he speaks of Jesus as a rebel, claiming to be the Messiah.
Now, we know Jesus is real. The Gospels are real. Though it could be a secretary who wrote them. Reviewing handwriting, the scholars come up with a writer they call , Q. They don’t know who Q is but his writings aren’t in question. I don’t recall what he wrote.
Now, we don’t know the real date of Jesus’s birth. It was around the end of September or in October, maybe, November. Why did they pick December 25th? We would take pagan holidays and symbols and teach the pagan how God was present in these things and how, it meant He was trying to reach them. In Romans 2 or 8 , It says to meet the unbeliever where he is and embrace his celebrations. This way they don’t have to give everything up to believe in Jesus.
Mary’s assumption into heaven, the church feels Mary was so important that her grave would be marked and venerated. No grave!! So, the church decided she was assumed in life in heaven. Now. There is the story of the rwo Mary’s and a servant girl, named Sarah going by boat to Southern France. There is a church there of the two Mary’s. Source history channel. It is in Dan Brown’s books. Of one I read, Holy Blood, Holy Grail, he gives you little truths and ends with big assumptions. Someone gave me the book to read to shake my faith. Don’t read it. It is sick. So, was Mary in France and buried there? These stories do not salvation make. Jesus was real. The Gospels verify His teachings, life, death and ressurection. Most crucifixions are rope tied wrists but there were more than Jesus who were nailed. But, only one nail imbeded in a wrist bone has ever been found. Strange when there were so many crucifixions.
So, stand on the word of God. Tell that Rome and Josephus wrote of Jesus and the rest is held to be true but some extraneous beliefs may change if new facts are found.
The shroud is real. When it was patched at the time of the fire, nuns used thread from their time to re-weave some of the damaged parts. That’s the part that was carbon dated. But grass and leaves found in the weave come from the Jerusalem place at the right time.
There is no reason for the Gospels not to include a wife and child, if Jesus had one. The blood on the shroud was A+… or AB+ . It would be nifty, if AB+ because it is the universal recipient. That would mean He could receive anyone’s blood. He could receive all of us. If AB+ If A only, He couldn’t receive B type blood.
The gnostic Gospels are heretical. Adam had a first wife who was bossy and left him. Now, if she left Eden where did she go and obviously open the gate of Eden. So, did God keep humiliated Adam in Eden and then, create Eve as his wife?
So, much stuff to validate. The church is still trying to validate things. Now, with AIDS, condoms are allowed. Now, because of the zitavirus, birth control pills are allowed. Thank God, till we get rid of the mosquito. Those poor babies and families. God pour out your mercy and healing on them. “BY YOUR STRIPES, WE ARE HEALED.”
I, probably, added more to your confusion. Keep you faith and relationship with Jesus.
in Christ’s love
Tweedlealice
 
Scholarship - on some points, a very large amount of it, on other points, not a very large amount of it - has added weight to various points of concrete history, astronomy and other sciences.

Faith that comes by hearing the Word of God spoken to us together with its attached meaning, connecting with our lives and circumstances, can highlight the significance of that.

Faced by bossy moralisers in immaculate suits and ties on the TV who “appear” to suggest you send $700 😉 but without a neighbour who shows depth of existential trust in the Provident One, the average member of the public, not having any grasp of the potential significance of John the Baptist, perfectly naturally point out a site associated with a personality in terms of “is said to” namely, by those who say, and they say because they want to say because it means something to them. A TV presenter may have enough morale to dress nicely and train up to do his job, but inside, he may be gutted, likewise his script writer and the TV channel owners.

(On occasion, good scholarship can propose two or more possible “sites” or other circumstances, which fact doesn’t really undermine that for example John the Baptist operated somewhere near there.)

“Is said” - doesn’t Jesus himself say “It is written”! This works both ways and needn’t necessarily be taken as implying lack of authority. That it is said, is a good witness in itself.

I believe in Krishna more than any Hindu does, because to me some things that ring true in the digests of old accounts, that I have come across, are that, after his probable stint as adviser and chariot-driver to Prince Arjuna or someone very like him, he returned to his native city Dvaravati as elder statesman and after a sad and destructive civil war the city suddenly suffered a major subsidence (preceded by several days of strange noises and signals given by animals). Subsidence and other forms of inundation of different sizes have been commonplace over the last 20,000 years (though it doesn’t feature prominently in the “popularised” - as distinct from “sensationalised” with the relativism this subtly implies - version of science).

Dumbed-down oceanography, dumbed-down geology, dumbed-down history, dumbed-down religion have never done anyone any favours. When we are finally offered a full banquet table of truths, we shall be able to pick according to our aptitudes and not “need” to form excuses for it.

A wide and deep secular education is a true work of mercy in my opinion.

Hindus hate to be told Krishna was a real person. To me, a hard boiled avant garde 21st century individual, he reminds me that when caught up in a deep quarrel, that is probably well nigh impossible to resolve, it is wise to remember the precariousness of our overall circumstances on this awesome planet hurtling through its course.

Hindus under oppression from Muslims and, reading between the lines, before then, cultivated a kind of mysticism divorced from concretes, so as to pretend that their “beliefs” weren’t “beliefs” of a kind that should atttract opprobrium. When questioned about their “historical records” they would put on strings of 000s hence a “yuga” would be said to last 432,000 years, Rama lived 5 million years ago, etc.

Likewise in secular society in the “West” has been two “centres” in uneasy disequilibrium, on one hand a cut-down rationalism, on the other a cut-down religiousness, swerving between bouts of perhaps gritted-teeth cosying up, semi-agression and out and out agression.

The vision that fires me now is to combine and flesh out all fields, and try and inspire those around me likewise, as their true aptitudes take them.
 
Some portion of history made from inferences. As more information comes available on something the inferences may be brought into question or updated.
 
Tweedlealice, mentioning Adam - no wonder he was quick to blame his “new” wife! 😉

If Scriptures are passed on with their attached meaning they can act as aides memoire (“Bullet points”) for doctrine.

For instance Jews traditionally regarded Gn 1 from v 2 onwards as part of the Creation account because of verse 1 and chapter 2. (A certain amount of scholars think the remainder of ch 1 deals concretely with a situation that was as far back as humanity was able to remember and maybe even one that had ocuured more than once.)

The Church calls us to hold to the teaching on Creation that became traditional since before Christ’s time, in a concrete but not “literally literal” way. Science helps understand concretes therefore will not conflict with truly founded faith. It is by some kind of inspiration that Scriptures as written have become attached to the meanings given by the best traditions since before Christ. God means us to be given those “Bullet points” which He wants to open up for us many deep truths.
 
If the information is important to you, then you will, personally, require more verificatin than if it isn’t.

Period.
 
Why do we know where Abraham Lincoln was born? At least in America he was an important historical figure. Because of that his home was kept, restored, and marked for future generations.

The early Christians did the same for important places in Jesus’ life. They marked these places often times by building a Church there. The information is passed on. It’s really as simple as that.

History is really only known by the accounts of the witnesses from that time. Science can further add credibility to these accounts by finding things that also point to that event being true. An example would be finding military equipment at the site of a recorded battle. But lack of any further evidence doesn’t mean what is recorded is necessarily false. In fact, I would view something like the Jewish Passover celebration as evidence that the original Passover in Egypt actually happened even if there is no scientific evidence for it happening. I don’t need to have scientific evidence for why I celebrate “Independence Day”. The testimony of the witnesses as passed on through my American Heritage has preserved that as a true event in the same manner that the Jewish heritage has preserved that event as well. Otherwise you would have to ask the question “How did they begin to celebrate such an event?” Did they read about it in the Book of Exodus first? Or did it really happen and then it was recorded. Only the latter makes sense.
 
Read a lot.

Study the notes.

Learn the original languages so you’re not so dependent on translations.

Visit the historic sites.

Study archeology.

Spend your life learning and studying.
 
The problem with antiquity, as opposed to relatively modern events like the battle of Gettysburg, is that far enough back there is no unbroken provenance for records or events. So there will be debates over what exactly took place.

For some events a weebit of doubt is acceptable. The site of our LORD’s baptism along the Jordan can be accepted as uncertain; that He lived life cannot be.

ICXC NIKA
 
There is a science to the study of history. If you want to deny that we can not know that certain events in history took place then you need to have a reason. If you deny it because it is written on paper then you have to dismiss all sorts of evidence that is on paper, like court documents. If you want to deny iy because it was written by fallible humans then you will also have to throw out court room testimony. Ultimately, if you deny history based on scepticism then you end up also having to deny all kinds of things, and even science itself.
 
It’s difficult to find any great historical event that wasn’t written about by somebody with a dog in the fight. Who is likely the more authentic recorder of the history of World War II: an American, a Russian, a Frenchman, an Englishman, or a German? 🤷

Ditto for the rest of human history.
 
Charlemagne_III said:
It’s difficult to find any great historical event that wasn’t written about by somebody with a dog in the fight. Who is likely the more authentic recorder of the history of World War II: an American, a Russian, a Frenchman, an Englishman, or a German? 🤷

Ditto for the rest of human history.
Click to expand...
While there will be differences between different eye witness accounts of an event, there will be commonalities between them that we can take as facts. This is for instance used in the minimal facts argument for the resurrection.
 
ethereality said:
I came across an agnostic phrase by Rory Jones in the Wall Street Journal:
Jones includes the phrase “is said to have” to include his understanding that we don’t know for sure that it actually happened there. When wondering if Jones wasn’t sure it happened at all, I thought to myself, “Wait, the Church says we know it happened!”

So this presents the question: How do we know whether something happened historically? How do we move from saying, “people say this happened,” to, “this happened”? What is the criteria?

My impression is that it comes down to individual preference, individual biases, how much information someone needs to feel comfortable. Put another way, we say we know it happened if denying it causes much confusion. This doesn’t seem to be a well-developed epistemology, though, so I’m not happy with this answer. I realize that I’ve never actually been taught how we rationally determine historical facts, except perhaps agnosticism – that it’s all probability, that we can’t have the certainty that experience yields.

That is:
Faith: We know some historical detail because the Church says so dogmatically.
Reason: We can’t know and can only speak qualitatively based on how much evidence there is and how comfortable we are with it (our philosophical biases, etc).

Is this correct? What are your thoughts?

I don’t intend to argue in this thread. I’m merely seeking a better epistemology for history.
Click to expand...
Salutations,
See below. On site of John the Baptist, it is in question.
There is another site on the Jordon river, they question.
Not far from the other site… Arafat was alive and a priest was taking us on tour on History channel or Discovery.
The more they dig the more will pop up
Faith is the substance of things unseen and …hope for.
in Christ’s love
Tweedlealice:shrug:
 
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